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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27126265">Dreaming Wide Awake</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krixel/pseuds/Krixel'>Krixel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Illusion &amp; Dream [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ethari has zero time for it, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, I bullshit my way through soul coin physics, M/M, No Beta, Runaan lies to protect Ethari</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:01:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,217</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27126265</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krixel/pseuds/Krixel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Viren coined Runaan, a small sliver of Runaan's soul remained tethered in the Silvergrove to his lotus and his husband. On the night of the full moon, he gets one last moment to say goodbye.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ethari/Runaan (The Dragon Prince)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Illusion &amp; Dream [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970386</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dreaming Wide Awake</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Prompt Fill: Ruthari - Oh love, please don't cry.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Time slipped and twisted in an endless expanse inside the coin. Perpetual darkness and the lack of a true body made it impossible to track the days. He’d counted seconds at first, anything to occupy his attention, to hold back the tide of memories, gilded and sharpened with edges of shame. They’d consider him gone by now, unaware of his trapped soul, pulled from the world by dark magic and bound to an unfathomable fate. Runaan let the weeks tumble from his mind and closed his eyes.</p>
<p>———————</p>
<p>It was the water that woke him. The gentle lapping against a stone barrier, at once familiar and impossible. When he opened his eyes, he stared. Placid, silver water reflected shining moonlight, its glint an opaque sheen on the ritual pool. A single lotus floated near the center, and Runaan prayed that even in this dream it showed truth. Maybe, in that one thing, he hadn’t failed. </p>
<p>The Silvergrove appeared as it always did, tranquil in its constant twilight. Elves, with recognizable faces, focused on their evening tasks. The buzzing murmur of conversation filled the air. Leaves rustled in the trees, swayed by a gentle breeze, but there was an absence around him, a disconnect from this place - his home - that scratched at his mind. </p>
<p>“Runaan.”</p>
<p>He had no breath to hold, or heart to flutter, but solace always found him when Ethari spoke his name. He turned to his husband, afraid he’d somehow get him wrong. Terrified that his memory would not capture the warmth he so needed from this dream, a small sliver of peace to embrace when he awoke to his infinite isolation. But Ethari’s gaze was not for him.</p>
<p>His husband stood at the edge of the ritual pool. Its light shimmered in the dampness dripping down Ethari’s cheeks, turning his tears to falling stars. Honey eyes fixed on the gleaming water with an accusation that bordered on rage. “What am I supposed to do now?”</p>
<p>The question leeched the last of Ethari’s strength, and he knelt then and bowed his head. Runaan reached for him on instinct, determined to ease the trembling in those strong shoulders, but his gossamer grip failed to connect. Fingers drifted through Ethari like mist off the water and left nothing in their wake. He could not touch Ethari. Ethari could not feel him. </p>
<p>Runaan stood beside his husband as he cried, a specter haunting this nightmare version of his life, and discovered that though his heart needn’t beat within this soul form, it could still break. Runaan turned away and closed his eyes. </p>
<p>———————</p>
<p>Staring into the darkness of his prison, Runaan stopped counting. He stopped doing much of anything. Ethari’s tear-stained face preyed upon his hours, and Runaan longed to wrap himself in a better dream. </p>
<p>A sunlit field. Calloused hands, warm against sun-heated skin. Soft lips. The brush of flower petals and clinking glasses. The sweet, sharp flavor of moonberry moscato on his tongue. Runaan clutched the memories, knowing their touch, tasting their moments, and closed his eyes. </p>
<p>———————</p>
<p>It was the water that woke him. The gentle lapping against a stone barrier, at once familiar and impossible. Not again. Runaan opened his eyes. In the ritual pond, the face of the full moon waited. Its twinkling pearly light reflected on the pool’s surface, welcoming him back to a new nightmare.</p>
<p>Runaan approached, careful and wary. The single lotus drifted, its aimless float leaving ripples along the mirrored surface. It spun in slow, graceful circles, never straying too far from the center. His last dream delivered the broken shell of his husband, held Runaan in its clutches to watch him cry. Perhaps this one offered him Rayla’s demise. </p>
<p>“Runaan.”</p>
<p>He stilled. A dreaded cold chilled the conflicting emotions roiling in his chest. Love. Always love for Ethari. But a new, slithering fear rooted into him, tangling with the shame and the guilt - the memory of Ethari’s tears.</p>
<p>Runaan faced his husband. Ethari stood at the edge of the ritual pool. Its shimmering light illuminated the high planes of his cheeks and faltered beneath the hollow shadows of his eyes.</p>
<p>Ethari scrubbed a hand over his worn face, lines of exhaustion stark against his absent smile. He stared at the ritual pool like a death sentence. “I’ve put this off for as long as they’d let me. They think this,” he waved his hand in the vague direction of Rayla’s lotus, “is to blame for my recent dissent.”</p>
<p>Claiming a seat on the stone rim, Ethari dipped a finger into the water. He swirled it, a distant, almost wistful expression drawing back the dark curtains of his mood. “Oh, Runaan.” He barely breathed the words. “What a fool I am, still coming here to talk to you, like it’ll make any difference at all.”</p>
<p>“I’m here,” Runaan said, stepping forward to stand opposite his husband. “I just don’t know how to show you.”</p>
<p>Ethari heaved a sigh, steeling his strength for an irrevocable act, and stood. He circled the stone basin, a mere breath from Runaan, but a violent trembling took up in his limbs and he faltered. A fresh wave of tears collected in Ethari’s eyes, and he tilted his head back, blinking up at the moon. Runaan reached for him, resting his hand along Ethari’s painted cheek, careful not to press through him. “Oh love,” he said. “Please don’t cry. Not for me. Not anymore.”</p>
<p>A stillness captured their moment, and then Ethari’s head tilted down and his eyes narrowed at the space Runaan stood. His own hand lifted, brushing his cheek and Runaan’s hand, but then he shook his head. A fractured laugh escaped him. “Your imagination is running away, Ethari,” he said to himself. “Talking to nothing, phantom touches, what a mess I am.”</p>
<p>Runaan stared. As Ethari’s attention returned to the pool, Runaan flexed his fingers and stepped closer. A brief flash of a second, but they’d connected. Runaan’s gaze trailed to the pool, to the shimmering full moon, and he wondered.</p>
<p>“It’s now or never,” Ethari murmured beside him.</p>
<p>As Ethari knelt beside the pool and reached into the water, Runaan sat on the stone lip and watched. Retrieving the sunken flowers was always a solemn affair, and on most occasions, Runaan accompanied him. Ethari viewed it as his responsibility, as the caster of the ritual, while Runaan bore the weight of its lost souls.</p>
<p>Ethari lifted his hand from the water, cupping the first muted flower in his palm, and let the droplets scatter their sorrow across the crystal surface. He set it on the ledge beside Runaan and dipped his hand in for the next. Runaan trailed his fingers across the dull metal. “I’m sorry, Callisto.”</p>
<p>For each of Runaan’s fallen assassins, Ethari retrieved a lightless lotus. And Runaan apologized, though for which mistake, he wasn’t sure - far too many plagued him now. Placing the fourth on the stone ledge, Ethari closed his eyes on a sharp inhale. “One more.”</p>
<p>“I’m with you, my light.” Runaan abandoned his seat and knelt behind Ethari. He steadied his hand against Ethari’s, but his husband offered no reaction. Runaan rested his cheek between Ethari’s shoulder blades, and conjured the memory of the soft, familiar brush of Ethari’s shirt. “We’ll get mine together.”</p>
<p>Their hands vanished below the water, Ethari’s solid arm slipping into the echoed moonlight, shadowed by Runaan’s ephemeral presence. Beneath the surface, Ethari’s fingers brushed a pointed petal of the last lotus, and he frowned. “This can’t - can it?”</p>
<p>The glowing tip of a crystal emerged, followed by the silver tips of the petals, and then Ethari’s careful, cupped fingers. Runaan glided his hand along Ethari’s, the translucent tips of his fingers stretching for the impossibility before him. </p>
<p>A jolt, like lightning, erupted at the tip of the crystal, where their fingers touched, and Runaan’s eyes closed.</p>
<p>———————</p>
<p>Runaan awoke in an endless expanse of moonlight. There was no lapping water, no dancing, winking reflection, and he thought it should hurt. Too often he’d awoken in an infinity of darkness, somehow cold in the absence of sensation. A rotting, putrid prison made from death and sculpted by dark magic. </p>
<p>And yet, only warmth found him here. A familiar glow of affection that confirmed Runaan’s suspicions. Ethari’s magic, a delicate lace of complexities compared to Viren’s brute force, had woven deep into Runaan’s splintered soul and refused to submit beneath its bastardized brethren. Runaan smiled. Stubborn.</p>
<p>“Runaan.”</p>
<p>When he turned it was no dream, no memory, of Ethari that waited for him. It was his husband, and it hurt. “Ethari.”</p>
<p>“Is this a dream?” Ethari took tentative steps towards him, swiveling his head to make out anything in the silver void around them.</p>
<p>Runaan’s smile trembled before he wrangled control of it. “I’m afraid so, my light, but hopefully it can be a good one.”</p>
<p>Ethari shook his head and stopped before Runaan. He brushed a hand along Runaan’s arm, and Runaan willed himself still. “This doesn’t feel like a dream.” Ethari said. “You feel real. I need you to be real.”</p>
<p>Runaan lifted his hand and cupped Ethari’s cheek. His thumb caressed the skin beneath Ethari’s eye in smooth, gentle strokes. “I’m sorry, love.”</p>
<p>Ethari’s head bowed, and Runaan’s thumb dampened. The weight of Ethari’s tears shook the foundation of Runaan’s will, but he did not shatter. Ethari clutched at his hand. “I miss you,” he said. “And by the moon, I’m furious at you.”</p>
<p>Runaan’s lips quirked on one side. “As you should be,” he said. “I broke my promise.”</p>
<p>“And what am I supposed to do without my heart?”</p>
<p>Runaan stepped close, slid his hand off Ethari’s cheek to cup his neck, and pressed their foreheads together. “You could never lose your heart, Ethari. It is everything you do, and who you are. Not even I could steal that away, and I would not want to.”</p>
<p>Ethari choked on a broken laugh. “Says my imaginary husband.”</p>
<p>“You knew me better than anyone,” Runaan said. “There is no truer version of me than yours.”</p>
<p>“I know you, Runaan. Don’t talk like your gone.”</p>
<p>Runaan ducked his head to hide the wound of those words. With every second of their shared pain he wanted to tell Ethari the truth, confirm everything his husband suspected, but just as Ethari knew him, he knew Ethari. </p>
<p>His husband, fierce and loyal, and oh so brilliant, would not accept Runaan’s tortured fate with grace. If Ethari realized even a single chance remained to restore Runaan, he would take it. Ethari would hunt Viren, and he would find him, and Runaan refused to let that happen. Ethari was safe in the Silvergrove. Viren could not have him. </p>
<p>Runaan lifted his head and pressed a soft kiss against Ethari’s lips. “I am gone, my light.”</p>
<p>Ethari clung to him, pulling Runaan to his chest and holding him tight. “Not here, you’re not.”</p>
<p>“But this isn’t real.”</p>
<p>“It’s real to me,” Ethari said. “Let me stay here. Let me have this.”</p>
<p>Runaan’s fingers curled against the back of Ethari’s neck, stroking through the short hair at his nape. “Let me go, love. You can’t stay here.”</p>
<p>“I saw your lotus.” Ethari pulled away as a frantic light sparked to life in his eyes. “It wasn’t empty. You’re not gone, and this isn’t a dream.”</p>
<p>Clever. Stubborn. Runaan stepped back as Ethari paced. When Ethari whirled on him, he lifted his brows. “What happened to you? Tell me how to find you.”</p>
<p>“There’s nothing to find,” Runaan said, waving a hand between them. “My knowledge matches yours. I’m not real, Ethari. I’m just… you, and you’re dreaming.”</p>
<p>“Then I’m going to wake up and prove you wrong.”</p>
<p>Runaan sighed. Because the truth awaiting Ethari outside his created haven was that the bound sliver of his soul, the piece of him that Ethari’s magic ensnared, the last connection that’d given Runaan one last moment with his beloved, no longer rested in the lotus. With the brush of his fingers over the crystal, he’d put himself back together, his soul fully enveloped by the dark magic. Ethari would wake to nothing, and so too would Runaan, a world away in an infinite prison. But Ethari would be safe.</p>
<p>Runaan stepped into Ethari’s pacing path. He placed his hand on the side of Ethari’s neck, tracing it along his jaw, and cupped his chin. “I love you,” he said, because his heart would not allow him anything else. “In every moment, every breath, and heartbeat, for the rest of your life, I will love you. And when there is no more of this life, I will find you in the next, and give you eternity.”</p>
<p>“Runaan-”</p>
<p>“Now, wake up.” And Runaan closed his eyes.</p>
<p>———————</p>
<p>Ethari sat on the ground by the ritual pool and stared at the lifeless lotus in his hands. He brushed his thumb along the gray crystal and smiled. Fifteen years. Fifteen years to call Runaan his. Fifteen years of laughter, joy, and blissful, honest happiness. Love. Fifteen years of perfectly messy, beautiful love. And fifteen years to know Runaan and when he was lying. </p>
<p>“I’ll hold you to your promise of eternity,” Ethari said, cradling the husk of the lotus as he stood. “But you’ll give me all of this one first.”</p>
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